You cannot center the text in a column of an inserted table in Word

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Symptoms

In Microsoft Word, when you try to center the text in a column of an inserted table, you may be unable to do so.

For example, in Microsoft Office Word 2003, when you click Centered in the Pick formatting to apply list of the Styles and Formatting task pane, the centered formatting is not applied to the selected text as expected.

NOTE: If you have not yet applied centered formatting to any text in your document, Centered does not appear in the Pick formatting to apply list.

Cause

You can only apply the Centered formatting style to either of the following elements:

The first column of the inserted table

Any other text contained in the document

Note In Word 2003 and in earlier versions of Microsoft Word, the Centered formatting style is in the Styles and Formatting task pane. In Microsoft Office Word 2007, the Centered formatting style is in the Styles task pane.

Workaround

To work around this issue, use one of the following methods:

Select the text that you want to center, and then click the Centered button on the Formatting toolbar.

Note In Microsoft Office Word 2007, click Center in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.

Select the text that you want to center, and then click Paragraph on the Format menu. On the Indents and Spacing tab, change the setting in the Alignment box to Centered, and then click OK.

Note In Microsoft Office Word 2007, click the Paragraph Dialog Box Launcher. On the Indents and Spacing tab, change the setting in the Alignment box to Centered, and then click OK.-or-

Apply the Centered formatting style to the other columns in the inserted table that you want centered before you apply it to the first column.

Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.